Pressure on Diagnostic Services In recent years, adult autism diagnostic services have come under exceptional pressure. Referral rates have surged, far outpacing clinical capacity, and exposing systemic limitations in provision. The consequences are stark. An NHS-funded diagnostic service in Oxfordshire, for example, recently closed its waiting list after estimating that it could take until 2043 to process its backlog of over 2,000 patients. For individuals referred before 20

Over the past two decades, research on autism has expanded at an extraordinary pace. Studies on prevalence, lived experience, and intervention strategies now appear almost daily. Yet this increase in quantity has not always been matched by quality. Many papers recycle familiar themes: autistic people struggling in a “non-autistic world,” the “stigma of autism,” or the idea that camouflaging one’s autistic traits is uniquely damaging. While none of these claims are inherently